Crawford County

ARTICLES ABOUT CRAWFORD COUNTY BY DATE - PAGE 5

This Monday will be a big night for many residents of the Waters area. It is expected that at a meeting at the Otsego Lake Township Hall, a representative from the United States Postal Service will be on hand to discuss closing the Waters post office. As expected, this possibility has many Waters residents upset. They would be forced to change addresses and zip codes from Waters to Frederic, located about seven miles away in Crawford County. A number of residents and business owners are upset not only about the inconvenience of change, but it is also creating a swell of community pride.

CRAWFORD COUNTY — The first major forest fire of the season in Northern Michigan was quickly contained Tuesday evening by Department of Natural Resources (DNR) crews and local fire departments but not before it burned 817 acres in the Manistee River Road area in northwest Crawford County. DNR spokesperson Mary Detloff reported today (Wednesday) that crews had the fire 100-] percent contained and fire crews would spend most of the day in the Howes Lake Road area where the fire originated, dealing with any remaining hot spots.

GRAYLING (AP) — The state says a bolt of lightning struck a jack pine tree, causing a wildfire that burned 817 acres of northern Michigan woodlands. Officials said Wednesday that fire crews have fully contained the blaze that began in Crawford County west of Grayling. Authorities discovered the fire Tuesday afternoon. It destroyed or damaged several buildings and forced the temporary evacuation of about 100 homes. Department of Natural Resources spokeswoman Mary Dettloff says National Weather Service radar showed a lightning strike in the area Monday night.

GRAYLING (AP) — Fire crews have fully contained a blaze that burned 750 to 800 acres of northern Michigan woodlands, destroyed or damaged several buildings and forced the evacuation of 100 homes, a state spokeswoman said Wednesday. The fire broke out about 2:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Howes Lake area of Crawford County west of Grayling, a town of about 1,800 about 125 miles north-northeast of Grand Rapids. No injuries have been reported, and the source of the blaze wasn't immediately determined.

FREDERIC TWP. — Several Northern Michigan fire departments and crews from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) are currently battling a quickly spreading wildfire in northwest Crawford County which Otsego Lake Township Fire Dept. chief Joe Shelly said has burned at least 1,000 acres. Shelly said his department received a request for standby around 2 p.m. from the Frederic Township Fire Dept. who responded to the initial blaze. The fire has been burning in the Manistee River Road area between County Road 612 to the north and M-72 to the south, near the Crawford/Kalkaska county border.

Deward: A lumberman’s ghost town: by Carl Addison Leech (originally published in Michigan History Magazine, Vol. 28, No. 1, January & March, 1944) Deward was a thriving logging town in northwest Crawford County near the Otsego County border in the early 20th century. Deward’s main street might have boasted two sections to the town: the mill group and the railroad group, each with their own buildings and equipment. The mill men’s section of town was made up of the general store of the company, a large two-story boarding house, a two-room schoolhouse, the Swedish church, a community hall over the store and 300 or more small cottages for the mill hands and their children.

CRAWFORD COUNTY — A collaboration between the Michigan State Police (MSP), U.S. Marshals and the Crawford County Sheriff's Office resulted in the arrest of Avery Robert Parker, a suspect in a sexual assault who was on the lam since Saturday. According to a press release from the sheriff's office, Parker, 45, of Roscommon, was apprehended early Tuesday by the Detroit MSP Fugitive Team, MSP Technical Services and United States Marshals in a Detroit neighborhood. Parker will be transported to the Crawford County Jail awaiting charges on six felony counts, ranging from criminal sexual conduct first degree to unlawful imprisonment and aggravated domestic violence.